how to keep mod components after uninstalling mods?

[christine13black]

Hi,

 

I have a problem,this is that my computer is not the faster machine out there,it's 7 years old and so far has served me well but unfortunately i can't push it that much.it can't handle too many mods and i'm pretty much addicted to mods.i keep many quest mods that i have finished playing just because there are items in those mods that i want to keep.is there a way to duplicate those items and put them on a separate mod so i can keep them and uninstall the mods?i don't know how to use the creation kit much,so far i only managed to make a couple of npcs to have as followers but that's as far as i have gone.

 

the ck tutorials are pretty confusing to me,what i want is a step by step thing for what i want to do ,if you can point me to it i'd be very grateful.

 

 

[KenJackson]

Well, first off, unless the mod's scripts are still running in the background, a quest mod shouldn't affect performance. Leaving them installed would only use drive space, which is the reason that I personally, I do this all the time.
TESCS can be used to do most of this, but you need to know exactly what elements any object uses. Simply make a copy of the mod to use as a backup (Don't skip the backup! I couldn't tell you how many times I've messed something up and had to do it over.) and delete what you don't need. Thing to keep include: the object itself, any scripts that it uses, any custom enchantments or spells it may use, any scripts used by those enchantments, any objects used by any of those scripts, and any scripts/enchantments/objects/etc. for them. Granted this may sound daunting, but the majority of items are fairly simple. You shouldn't need anything that calls your object, just what is called. The "Details" button on the "Files\Data" window offers an easy way to delete large categories. The mod's elements are sorted by "Grup" groupings, so if you don't need any of the 'Cell's (which is likely if you're just keeping a sword or a ring.) Just Highlight all the 'Cell's and hit "delete".
Note that this does not actually delete them, YET! What this does it toggle an "ignore" flag which keeps TESCS from loading them. Note also that some "type"s like "Ref" and "Grup" can't be directly flagged. These are basically kind of like 'file folders", These will automatically be removed once they are empty.
When you load the mod with the ignore flags set watch for errors which might indicate that a necessary file is now missing. If so, DO NOT SAVE! just reopen the details box find what you're missing, toggle it back and reload. One it loads with no errors, you can finish deleting the elements by saving the mod. Because the 'ignore'd elements were never loaded, they don't get saved.
Once your mods have just the items you want to keep (I suggest making sure they still work in-game. If not, it's likely that you still managed to delete something you needed to keep. "Oops recopy from the original and try again. Good thing I made that backup copy!") load all of your stripped down mods and only them into TESCS (selecting an active mod is irrelevant). Then under "Files\Tools" the first item 'combine loaded plugins' will merge them into a single mod which you have to give a new name.
You now have your items tidied up into a single mod, without the accompanying baggage. Make sure it works before you delete the component files. Once, but only once, the formID numbers all got changed on me when I performed the merge. I still haven't figured out what happened, just be aware that it can.
After that just deselect all the old mods, select your new composite one, (Although you may need to make a new Bashed Patch if you do that sort of thing, Personally, I use TES4Edit to tweak my mods so they're compatible. although it would be safer if I tweaked a Bashed Patch)
Now comes the (semi-optional) clean-up, which is only really necessary if, like me, you're doing this because you need the drive space. Unfortunately, if you use a mod manager, you may need to make copies of all the meshes and textures that you still need to keep. I'm unfamiliar with Bain, but OMM will delete ALL files associated with an OMOD if they are not being used by another installed OMOD. This includes any that are still needed for any "manually" installed mods. For example, Ren's beauty pack is used in several mods. Say you have an OMOD that uses it and a non-OMOD race mod that uses it as well. If you uninstall the OMOD the meshes and textures still needed for your other mod are gone. What's worse is that it is retroactive. You can't just temporarily move the files out of the way and the remove the OMOD. Because when OMM can't find them, it logs this as an error and keeps trying to delete on subsequent reloads them until it succeeds. This is the primary reason I tossed OMM. I've heard Bain is better, but I tend to go through mods when I install them and clean up their directory layouts and removing duplicate content, so I doubt Bain that would work for me either.
To keep the files you need, you need to copy them to a safe place, Successfully remove the OMOD and then you can move them back. On the other hand, If you don't use a mod manager, you now probably have a bunch of useless meshes and textures that are just taking up hard drive space. The only way to purge them is to sort them by hand. And depending on the number of mods involved that can be daunting. Luckily, for game purposes, you don't really NEED to get rid of them. A stray mesh of texture won't hurt anything (unless it overwrites a vanilla one),
I hope this last part didn't scare you, because it isn't absolutely mandatory and usually, the rest really is a fairly simple process.

Just remember: I do this for personal use, not to plagiarize material. No one else, not even my best friends, ever get to use these compilations. Before any content if offered for public use, you should get the consent of the creator.

Edited March 25, 2013 by KenJackson

[christine13black]

ok,i have to say from what you said i didn't understand a thing...i have the creation kit for skyrim ,i have TESedit5, wryebash, that's about it.
i'm more confused now than i was before lol. thank you for your effort though and taking the time but it doesn't really help me.
what i want to do is make a chest for example and add the things i need in there,a kind of chest that doesn't respawn. i don't know where to find such item in the object window. if i do that and just put the items in there i suppose there will be copies of the items in the chest and they won't require the original mod,or maybe i'm mistaken. i don't know all i know is the more mods i add the more the performance drops on my pc and the more ctds i have,and yes space is also an issue.


oh i should also add that i mostly care about items like armor and weapons and not so much about spells,it might be more complicated to get the spells.

 

 

you are refering to oblivion don't you?cos i'm interested in skyrim now i realised

Edited March 25, 2013 by christine13black